Whitnash Primary School uses

Precision Teaching

to help children who are having

some difficulty in the area of word reading, spelling and acquiring number facts.

Precision Teaching is a teaching method used to accelerate progress in word reading and spelling skills although

it is also used to increase children’s proficiency in number facts.

Precision Teaching is very effective

for children struggling to acquire automatic skills in learning letter sounds,

recognising whole words and spelling.

The principles of Precision Teaching match the good teaching principles recommended in Sir Jim Rose’s report of June 2009, Identifying and Teaching Children

and Young People with Dyslexia

and Literacy Difficulties.

In Precision Teaching, the child’s

daily performance is recorded and this process is known to increase motivation.

This is a simple but intense teaching method aimed at helping a child to embed facts

such as letter sounds,

single word reading, times tables etc.

The method aims to enable a child

to recall the targeted facts

in order to be able to apply it

independently in class.

Because it allows high repetition

of the facts to be learnt,

it is effective at accelerating progress

in word reading, for example,

if the following basic principles are followed: 

Specifically targeted facts to learn

e.g. secure recognition

of 10 high frequency words

or spell 5 topic words.

Daily 1-1 teaching session

for no more that 15 minutes per session.

Deliver the teaching in

the ‘flash card’ method.

Daily assessment recorded

in scores for the child to compete against.

Programme delivered over fixed period

of time, e.g. 8 weeks and

repeated/extended as necessary.